


Once Upon a Time

by HobbitSpaceCase



Series: Sweetheart, You'll Never be Alright [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky has low self esteem, Bucky/Hydra Agents, Gen, HYDRA Trash Party, M/M, Rape, Self Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, happy endings are even more non-existent than Bucky's self esteem, mentions of - Freeform, very very low self esteem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4257957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HobbitSpaceCase/pseuds/HobbitSpaceCase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a Hydra Trash Party prompt.  Bucky has been hiding his past sexual abuse from the Avengers, up until a mouthy Hydra operative they've captured decided to tell everyone all about what their famed assassin was used for when he wasn't being used to kill.  Now he thinks they're all going to see him as dirty and defiled, because that's how he sees himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Time

**Author's Note:**

> Full prompt:
> 
> I have a fiery, inexplicable love for fic where private trauma gets discovered, especially by people whom the traumatized character never would have willingly opened up to. SO: a scenario where Bucky has recovered enough to be Bucky and to be functional, but he hasn't come to terms with any of the brutal, humiliating sexual abuse and rape he suffered at Hydra's hands. He's ashamed beyond the telling of it, he's repressing hard, and he's trying to bury it deep. No one can ever know. He works with the Avengers, but he's only close to Steve (+ Nat + Sam, potentially!), and perhaps his relationships with some of the others are pretty tense.
> 
> AND THEN
> 
> Something happens to release a ton of awful details to the Avengers (or maybe THE WORLD), like they capture an extremely talkative trash party participant, or a video of a rape (or several rapes) gets leaked and blows up the internet, etc. All of a sudden everyone knows what happened to Bucky; they can't not. And Bucky knows they know. Maybe he was there when the news broke. He saw the way they looked at him.
> 
> It's awkward for the Avengers -- no one wanted to invade Bucky's privacy, and most of them have no idea what to do in this situation -- but it's devastating for Bucky. He thinks everyone will see him as soiled and shameful as he sees himself. Give me all of the painful dynamics as Bucky fails to cope with his worst shame becoming common knowledge, and as the team tries to readjust in light of how damaged Bucky is acting.

 I.

It’s a HYDRA scientist who brings Bucky’s slowly rebuilt world crashing right back down. Afterwards, he’s pretty sure he shouldn’t even be surprised.  
  
Most days were still difficult, and there was rarely a night where he didn’t wake sweating and grinding his teeth till they cracked from nightmares, but he had been getting so much better. He was learning how to smile and laugh like a person, learning how to say, “I want that,” without having a panic attack and ending up curled up in a corner, learning how to let people casually touch his shoulder or his knee or the small of his back without the desperate _fear panic run kill_ response lighting up his spine. He was doing so well that he was even allowed to join the others on small missions sometimes. They kept him away from the HYDRA missions, but that was ok. He’d already taken out most of the more important bases alone, before Steve found him and brought him in from the cold.  
  
The Avengers had given him a home and food and kept him safe when the government came for blood, desperate for a scapegoat for the chaos left in the wake of SHIELD’s downfall. Sure, he avoided most of them like the plague and only really trusted Steve, in so far as he trusted anyone at all, but that was because they were annoying, always looking at him like they could read his past written on his skin. He’d put that past behind him, buried it deep and made sure the others knew he was fine.  
  
(“And I fucking swear, Wilson, you ask me again and I’ll make you eat your fucking teeth”) (and ok, so maybe the one with the wings was the only one besides Steve who really badgered him about his mental state, but he could still see the looks the others gave him) (like they could _see_ , could somehow just _know_ what HYDRA’d done to him when he didn’t perform up to par-and sometimes even when he did) (but if they knew, they wouldn’t look at him like he was a _human_ no they’d know he was nothing just a weapon just a _toy_ )-  
  
He’d disabled all the bugs Stark had on his room, too, tearing JARVIS out of every corner till he was certain there was nothing of the AI left. No one was ever going to watch him again without his permission.  
  
All in all, life was looking up.  
  
Then Natasha returned from an easy solo mission checking out what was _supposed_ to be an abandoned HYDRA lab with a prisoner in tow. Bucky remembered that lab.  
  
_(There wasn’t supposed to be anyone there they aren’t supposed to bring back prisoners why can’t they all just die?)_  
  
The first Bucky knew about it was when Steve got a call during breakfast and started shifting around and looking at Bucky from the corner of his eye like the world’s guiltiest golden retriever. “Spit it out, Steve,” Bucky growled. “I know that was Romanov on the line, and you can’t hide things worth shit.”  
  
Steve’s mouth turned down in an unhappy pout that Bucky ignored. Not his fault if Steve didn’t like hearing the truth.  
  
“She brought back a prisoner from that base she hit yesterday. They're in Tony’s lab on the fourteenth floor, you know, the one he let her turn into an interrogation room? We don’t really have to be there, though. It’s not like Natasha can’t handle interrogations without us. Why don’t we try going for a walk to that diner you like instead?” If he was honest with himself, a pretty large chunk of Bucky wanted to take Steve up on that offer. 

No one else they’d interrogated so far had said anything about Bucky.

He might not even _know_ anything.  
  
But Steve seemed unusually nervous, and who knew what sort of information a Black Widow might deem it important to learn? So Bucky pasted on a smile, asked Steve to lead the way to the interrogation, and reminded himself that just about everyone important was already dead and gone, or at least locked up so far underground they’d never see the light of day again.  
  
When they reached the interrogation room, Bucky halted so abruptly that Steve nearly ran into him. He recognized the captured HYDRA scientist handcuffed to the chair across the room; the memory had returned just last night in one of his nightmares. He was being faced down by what seemed to be every last Avenger and then some. Bucky hadn't realized that when Steve said "they" he meant _everyone_  
  
“What the fuck are they doing here?” Bucky snarled, pointing to the others.  
  
“This is _my_ tower you’re using, and _my_ lab you’ve commandeered for your interrogation room, Robocop,” Tony Stark replied, condescension dripping from his words. “Besides, we helped bring him in.” Bucky growled at him. He and the Stark brat got along like a house on fire – that is, with lots of screaming and property damage any time their interactions went on too long.  
  
That was the point that the HYDRA scientist noticed the new arrivals. His attention had previously been taken up by the Black Widow, but he turned his head at Bucky’s voice.  
  
“Didn’t think the Avengers were desperate enough for manpower to use the Winter Soldier,” he sneered. Bucky missed the replies from the others as the room tipped sideways and static blurred his ears. He didn’t miss the way the technician’s head tipped back as he laughed, though.  
  
“You sure you know everything HYDRA put their precious weapon through?” the technician asked with a sneer.  
  
Bucky could feel Steve next to him vibrating with rage, but it was the Black Widow who replied, getting up in the man’s face and demanding, “Explain.”  
  
Bucky wanted to shake her, wanted to scream. The HYDRA tech didn’t need to explain a goddam thing. No one fucking needed to know _anything_ he had to say, but he was already talking, already fucking telling them everything and watching Bucky because he _knew_.  
  
“Did you know that whenever their precious soldier mucked up a mission, they punished him by turning him into a toy until he learned his place?”  
  
Bucky was pretty sure Iron Man was saying something snarky and stupid, but he couldn’t hear anyone else through the rushing in his ears.  
  
“Yeah sure, some of them treated him like a punching bag. But I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what would get him sent to me with blood and semen dripping down between his legs. Even with the enhanced healing, it’d still be hours before he wasn’t walking with a limp again.”  
  
All the Avengers were silent at that, but Bucky could imagine what was going through their heads. Steve was never going to look at him again. The others had already known he was broken and now they had an idea just how fucking disgusting he was, but fuck them. Bucky didn’t give a shit about any of them.  
  
But Steve was never going to look at him again.  
  
“Shut up,” he growled, taking a step towards the technician. The Black Widow looked behind him at Steve, and he felt a hand close around his left arm, but he ignored it. They were going to take him away and then this fucking HYDRA tech was going to tell them everything and Bucky was going to tear his fucking head off first.  
  
The technician laughed again, hardly flinching when Natasha turned her glare on him. “What, are you afraid I’ll tell them how much you enjoyed it when I’d clean you up after?” he asked, and Bucky felt a sick swooping in his gut.  
  
_"I think he likes it can't believe how much he likes it wants it is it good?"_   
“Shut up,” he growled again, ashamed to hear the note of panic in his voice. Steve was telling him to leave and he was being _bad_ but he couldn’t move couldn’t fucking make his legs work-  
  
“It was harder to clean you up when you would come all over yourself at the first sign of a nice touch, but it was a funny enough sight that I wasn’t complaining, though you’d make the most pathetic noises too if you weren’t muzzled. I guess some of the higher ups enjoyed it when you’d beg like a whore, but I preferred quiet in my work-“  
  
Bucky lunged for the man, snarling, but Natasha got to him first.  
  
“Oops,” she said, a Widow’s Bite lodged firmly in his neck. “Oh well. He didn’t seem to have any useful information anyway.”  
  
Bucky wrenched his arm out of Steve’s grip, gears whirring and grinding together as he stalked out of the room.  
  
He could still hear the HYDRA tech laughing. The others were talking too, but fuck them.  
  
_(They know they know they know they know-)_  
  
He’s a fucking puppet who knows how to shoot a gun and take a cock up his ass and love it.  
  
And Steve was never going to look at him again.

 

II.

 _There were hands holding him down – down – down beneath their laughing faces, running fingers through the tears and blood and come streaked across his cheeks, down his neck, in his hair –  
  
It hurt_ it hurt _–_  
  
“Please –“  
  
_The slap of a gloved hand across his face snapped his head to the side and set up a pounding in his skull in counterpoint to the rough jerking impacts against his hips –  
  
There was so much pain everywhere –  
  
In his head  
  
Across his chest  
  
Between his legs –  
  
A purring voice appeared in his ear, next to the hand gripping his hair and holding him down –  
  
“This is all you’re good for, our pathetic little toy, if you can’t even kill a fucking kid. Next time you fuck up, we’re not gonna go this easy on you – “  
  
More voices appeared in the background, jeering laughing mocking –  
  
“Look at him, so pretty and pathetic, maybe we should just keep him like this –“_  
  
Bucky’s whole body jerked as he woke up (can’t be _loud_ can’t be _bad_ shut up they’ll _hear_ ), tipping himself out of the bed and scrambling over to the corner before he remembered where he was. He was still in his room in Iron Man’s fancy prison of a tower in New York. No one was touching him.  
  
No one was ever going to want to touch him again, now that they all knew how disgusting and soiled he was.  
  
His stomach rumbled with hunger, and he swallowed down his bile at the thought of food. Just because he was a disgusting wreck was no reason to starve himself and get out of shape. No point in making himself useless in a fight as well.  
  
Bucky wrenched the door to his room open and made it two steps into the hallway before Steve’s presence registered. “The fuck are you still doing here?” He growled, pulling himself together enough to stalk past Steve. The asshole probably wanted to talk to Bucky, to tell him some bullshit about how it didn’t matter because Steve fucking Rogers was a saint who didn’t care if his old pal Bucky was a used up toy –  
  
_Precious little toy so pathetic so useless –_  
  
“I just wanted to check up on you,” Steve’s voice rang out, nearly halting Bucky in his tracks. He jerked his limbs back into motion, however, and didn’t even turn around before replying.  
  
“There’s nothing to check up on, I’m _fine_ ,” he said, reaching the kitchen and opening the fridge with enough force to nearly yank the door off its hinges.  
  
“Bucky, look,” Steve said from behind him, “it’s understandable if you’re feeling uncomfortable after what that HYDRA asshole said, but that’s no reason to treat your friends like this when we just want to help you.”  
  
Bucky whirled around and only just stopped himself from throwing a carton of orange juice at Steve’s head. “What the _fuck_ do you know about how I’m feeling?” he asked, practically snarling.  
  
Steve held out a placating hand, the condescending bastard, and tried to speak again, but Bucky rode right over him.  
  
“You heard what he said,” Bucky spat, crowding himself in close to Steve ( _too close so close you could touch him get him dirty make him filthy just like you -_ ), “I liked it, loved it even, it felt good, Stevie, to get on my knees and open up for them. Didn’t have to worry about fucking do-gooder assholes asking me _how I feel_ all the damn time cause they knew exactly how I felt, what I wanted –“  
  
He broke off when Steve’s back hit a wall with a low thump (and when did Steve start backing away?), and Steve finally reached out and pushed Bucky away.  
  
“Bucky, stop it!” he yelled, and Bucky’s mouth snapped shut so hard his teeth clicked.  
  
“I talked to Sam, and he said –“ Steve began, but Bucky cut him off, choked words coming out harsh and vicious in response to Steve’s confession.  
  
“You talked to Sam?” Bucky asked, backing away. “Wanted to make sure he didn’t feel left out of the Let’s Talk About Bucky party, did you? Did you have a good talk about how sad it is that your old pal Bucky is more ruined than you thought? Did you tell _him_ how you really feel about me?” There was a rolling, sick feeling in his stomach, and he was suddenly glad that Steve had interrupted his plans to eat. Toys like him didn’t deserve food.  
  
He swallowed back the bile that rose in his throat when Steve moved towards him, mouthing words that Bucky couldn’t hear through the static descending on the room.  
  
“Get away from me,” he said, doubling over and wondering when all the air had disappeared from the room.  
  
Steve ignored him and moved closer, so Bucky punched him in the face.  
  
“Go _away!_ ”  
  
There was laughter coming from the walls and pain closing in and the next time Bucky managed to concentrate enough to look where Steve had been, he was gone, just as Bucky knew he would be.

 

III.

The next time Bucky left his room, it was because the hunger pangs had grown bad enough to drive him out against his better judgment. Sure he’d dealt with worse pain during both missions and punishments while with HYDRA, but dammit he liked food. As long as Steve wasn’t around making stupid fucking comments and pretending the site of Bucky didn’t make his skin crawl, maybe he could even keep some food down. He crept out of his room in the middle of the night, breathing a sigh of relief when he didn’t see Steve. He hadn’t heard Steve outside his door for several hours, but as previous experience showed, that didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t there.  
  
Bucky walked down the hallway, shoulders hunched around his ears and all senses on high alert. As he approached the kitchen area, he heard faint shuffling sounds, and considered turning back. If it was Steve in the kitchen, he would turn back. His stomach had hurt worse than this before. Just because he was a super soldier who preferred heavy meals and really liked food, that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to cope with starvation. Those thoughts began to drag his mind down paths he would rather not tread, however, so he shoved down the same dark hole in his mind as everything else he didn’t want to think about. He crept the rest of the way down the hall on silent footsteps. When he reached the end of the hallway, he peered cautiously around the corner. The sight that greeted him was unexpected.  
  
Tony Stark was in Steve’s kitchen, making himself coffee with Steve’s coffee maker. It made no sense.  
  
And then it did.  
  
Steve must have told everyone that Bucky was acting unstable, so they were taking turns helping to babysit him. Bucky was furious. The fucking nerve of those do-gooding bastards, treating him like he was an unruly child. They probably thought he couldn’t be trusted anymore, now that they knew all of the ways in which he’d let HYDRA use him. And of course it was the fucking useless engineer they sent in to watch him. Probably thought if Bucky was so useless that he’d let HYDRA use him like a toy, then there was no need to waste a member of the team who didn’t need a full suit of armor in battle to keep him from getting crushed on Bucky-watch. There was no way the Black Widow had gotten so bad at spycraft as to think that he wouldn’t choose the middle of the night to get food, so they would only put a suit-free Iron Man on watch if they thought Bucky wasn’t going to be any trouble.  
  
And why should Bucky be any trouble? The others were being condescending pricks and Steve probably thought he was fucking disgusting, but Bucky had been doing just fine. Just cause everyone fucking _knew_ now didn’t mean Bucky wasn’t still fine. It wasn’t like he was gonna throw Iron Man right off the top of his fancy fucking tower or out a window or anything. Anyways, JARVIS’d probably stop him from dragging Stark to the roof, and the windows were almost certainly bulletproof glass that wouldn’t shatter even if Stark were in his uniform. Stark would be fine, because Bucky was just fine.  
  
With that thought, Bucky straightened up and stalked out of the hallway. Stark didn’t even look up at Bucky’s entrance. The bastard.  
  
“Move, Stark,” he growled, upon realizing that with the way the asshole was standing slouched against the counter completely blocked access to the fridge. Stark blinked up at Bucky, and then did a double take. Impressively, he didn’t spill a single drop of coffee in spite of all the flailing he did on the way to setting the mug down.  
  
“Hey,” Stark said, doing a miserable job of trying to sound cheerful while looking anywhere but at Bucky. “I ran out of coffee in the lab and your floor was closer than mine. I, ah, didn’t realize you’d be up and about in the middle of the night.” Stark rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and gestured at the coffee pot with his other hand. Bucky stared at him. If Stark wanted to play innocent like Bucky was some stupid child rather than a master assassin who could read the inventor’s lies a mile away, that was his prerogative.  
  
“Right,” Stark said, when Bucky continued to stare. “Moving out of your way now. Though really, a please would’ve been nice.” He moved enough that Bucky could get around him to the fridge, and then apparently decided that more talking was a good idea, rather than the worst idea Bucky had ever heard. “Y’know, I know people say opposites attract and all, but it’s still pretty impressive how very none of Cap’s all American charming politeness you have, for being his best friend.” Bucky slammed the fridge door.  
  
“Gonna tell me how funny it is that I’ve got none of his virtue and purity, either?” Bucky asked, forcing the words out through clenched teeth. He was pleased at the shocked look that got him. He thought of Steve being all nice and sweet the previous day as he told Bucky that he’d talked to other people about Bucky’s dirty little secret, and felt a wave of viciousness wash over him.  
  
“Steve and I have always been opposites, you know,” he said, clenching his fists at his side. The metal gears of his left arm whirred softly.  
  
Stark raised his hands and said, “Yeah, somehow I don’t think I’m gonna like where this is going, so how bout I just take my coffee and head back to the lab?” Bucky snorted. As if Stark was just going to leave him alone while he was on watch. Even Stark had more integrity than to leave a watch in the middle of it. Barely.  
  
“What’s the matter?” Bucky asked, pulling himself up onto the counter opposite Stark so as to loom more effectively. “I thought you _loved_ talking to people. Don’t you want to hear about how _opposite_ me and Steve have always been?” He ignored Stark’s attempts to answer the question, and kept talking. “Even when Stevie was just a tiny little punk with more heart than brains,” Bucky said, letting a filthy grin twist his lips, “he still always had to be on top, always had to be in charge. Me, on the other hand,” and Bucky dropped his words to a low purr, “I’ve always known exactly where my place is, on the floor taking orders from whoever wants a go.”  
  
“So,” he said, raising his voice back to a normal volume and slipping off the counter, while grabbing a box of cereal that had never been put away, “You can tell all your fucking friends that I’m fine, and go back to _not_ fucking worrying about me.” The final words ended in a nearly feral growl. Bucky pushed past Stark, exiting the kitchen area and stalking back down the hall. Stark would most likely continue to watch him all night, but at least now he knew that Bucky wasn’t about to go throwing anyone off of buildings at the drop of a hat. Not even himself.

 

IV.

The cereal box was nearly empty. Bucky glared at it, then switched to glaring at his own stomach when it gave a low rumble. He had managed to stretch the cereal out for two whole days, never leaving his room the entire time. He was grateful for the bathroom attached to his bedroom, as it aided his attempt to avoid the rest of the Avengers.  
  
He had spent his time alone alternating between nightmare memories of Hydra, contemplations on which of the Avengers might be on Bucky guard duty at any given time, and methodically tearing his room to pieces with frustration. If only that stupid fucking Hydra bastard was still alive, he’d love to kill him nice and slow and painful. Bucky’d been doing _just fine_ before the asshole came along and fucked everything up by running his mouth. Now all the Avengers thought he was a broken useless dirty _thing_.  
  
And Bucky was running out of food again.  
  
Steve, the sainted dick that he was, had been by at least a few times a day to knock on Bucky’s door and beg him to come out and talk. As though talking wasn’t what got them into this mess in the first place. Bucky didn’t need to talk. He needed everyone to stop looking at him and talking to him and thinking about him. He needed Steve to just give up, but Steve was a stubborn son of a bitch who never gave up on anything. Sure enough, just as Bucky was contemplating whether to eat the last of his cereal or try to stretch it to one more day, he heard a knock on his door again.  
  
“James?” an unexpected voice said. He jerked back against the nearest wall and choked on a reply.  
  
They’d sent the Black Widow to him. He wondered for one wild moment if she was here to put him out of his misery; he would deserve it, he thought. But of course, Steve would never do that, and Steve was the leader. Black Widows didn’t act without a leader any more than Winter Soldiers did.  
  
He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the door opening until she’d slipped through it, quiet as a shadow and just as hard to catch.  
  
“Steve is worried about you,” she said to him, and he snarled at her and pointedly turned his back.  
  
“I thought being a person again was supposed to mean that people respected it when I said ‘no’ to them,” Bucky snarled.  
  
Instead of responding to the clear ridiculousness of his words, the Black Widow simply glided over to the small end table he had not yet dismantled and set something down on it. “I brought food,” she said. Saliva flooded Bucky’s mouth as he finally registered the smell of Chinese takeout, and he glanced over briefly, before turning back away. He wouldn’t put it past a Widow to bring him poisoned food.  
  
“Get out,” he growled.  
  
She did not respond, and when he glanced over again, he saw that instead of leaving, she had folded herself down to sit on the floor and was eating from one of the small white takeout containers. The smell of fried rice and greasy chicken swirled through the air and made his head spin with desire. He hated her, just like he hated all of them, but he thought maybe he hated her the most. They had rarely so much as exchanged a brief, “Hello,” before this, and neither had been particularly inclined to change things. Then she had gone and brought in the Hydra tech. Moreover, she was a Black Widow, which meant her brain was probably just as fucked up as Bucky’s. He used to work with Black Widows, once, a long time ago. He’d killed Black Widows before, too. They, like him, were built to be weapons. Unlike him, they were never toys.  
  
“Do you remember the last time we met?” she asked, after the silence had stretched on for several minutes.  
  
“I shot you,” Bucky said, voice a monotone that invited no more talk. Of course she didn’t listen.  
  
“You do, then,” she said, instead. “I was never quite sure if you remembered. Do you remember the first time we met, too?”  
  
He hadn’t, right up until she asked. Now the memories came swirling back in a rush of colors and noise and skin deep emotion. “You were good. The best new graduate, they said. We took out twenty two civilians in addition to our targets, and you told me you wished you were made of metal too.”  
  
The sounds of eating died away, and there was silence for several more minutes, until, “Before graduation, the handlers were never allowed to touch us. We grew up with the knowledge that touch was for sparring practice and killing and nothing else.” Bucky grit his teeth, and swallowed down the urge to ask where this was going. She would get to her point or she wouldn’t, and he would continue to ignore her.  
  
“During our graduation,” she continued, after a brief pause, “they took us to medical one at a time, and told us they were taking away our last weakness, the thing that made men look at women and underestimate them. They said that sometimes we would have to let men touch us, let men think that they were using our bodies, in order to get information or get close enough to kill. They said that some of these men might hope to get us pregnant, force us to carry little children for them and tie us to something other than the men and women who had raised and trained us. They wanted to make sure that would never happen. I haven’t let a man inside me since that first one reached inside of me to take something out.  
  
Some days, I can’t decide if I want to be touched, or if I only think I should want it. Whenever I think about it too hard, I remember the other part of that day, after the doctors stitched me up. The handler overseeing the process, he came over to me when the doctors were done. I remember the way he ran his hands over me, told me how pretty I was and what a shame it was that he couldn’t keep me. I remember how nice it felt, especially when his hands passed over certain areas. I remember how his fingers felt between my legs, and how much I wanted him to keep going, in spite of the pain I was still in. Pain can be such a simple thing to ignore, as I’m sure _you_ remember. But I remember how the first time I saw your arm, I thought how wonderful it would be to replace my own skin with metal, because maybe it would get rid of that ache from his fingertips and the hunger I felt to be touched again. Some days I think I want to be touched again. Those are sometimes the hardest days to have skin, to be human. Maybe, though. Maybe that is a sign that I truly am human, after all.”  
  
He heard her stand, wondered at the loss of control that would make a Black Widow less than silent. “There are people I have met, since then,” she said, then stopped. He turned his head just enough to see her from the corner of his eyes; she stared at a wall away from him with a face as blank as any he could make, but when she spoke again, he could see the clench of her teeth and tightness around her eyes, the slight shake in her arms crossed over her chest. “There are people I have met, now, who care about me in spite of the things I have done. They do not care about who I killed, or the parts of me that died before they ever had a chance to grow. They know who I am, and they care about me anyway. I may not understand love, but I can see it when it is there.” She looked at him, and he jerked his head away again.  
  
“Steve loves you,” she said, and there was no way she was unaware of the effect of her words, but she was finally leaving. Before the door, she turned around with one last comment. “When you’re ready to come out, he’ll be here for you. Now eat the food I brought you.”  
  
As soon as she slipped out the door, Bucky collapsed to the ground, curling in on himself and hiccupping with dry, shallow sobs. His skin felt too tight on his body and his lungs didn’t quite work, and he wondered if maybe he’d made himself sick with the lack of food. He didn’t get sick, but there was a first time for everything. Well, nearly everything.  
  
Black Widows were liars, and Steve would never love _him_.

 

V.

 _“Steve loves you.”_  
  
Bucky huffed in annoyance, as he did every time the memory of the Black Widow’s words drifted through his mind. Once he was done having a pity party on the floor, he had given into the hunger in his belly and eaten the food she left. Now he was sitting in a corner with his arms wrapped around his knees and trying not to think of anything, but no matter how he tried his mind would not empty.  
  
_“Christ, he’s such a slut for it-“_  
  
_“They don’t care what I’ve done-“_  
  
_”Jesus I think it likes it more than you do, Rumlow-“_  
  
_”People care about me now-“_  
  
_”Ugh it’s fucking dripping can you believe it’s getting off on this-“_  
  
_”Just shove a rag in its mouth or something, Christ that squealing is annoying-“_  
  
_”Steve loves you-“_  
  
and Bucky hit his head against the wall for about the fiftieth time. Judging by how soft the wall was feeling, he’d probably made a pretty sizeable dent by now.  
  
He stayed in the same position, watching the sun drift across the window outside, for the rest of the day. The rush and color of New York always seemed so muted from fifteen stories up a glass and steel tower. It reminded him a bit of the cold of cryofreeze, or the hazy distortion that came right after a wipe, when the world seemed so far away and all he was aware of was the weight of his body, the drag of his metal arm against his shoulder and the icy burning itch that never quite went away from beneath his skin.  
  
The fingers on his skin after a mission, or before he’d fully warmed from cryofreeze, had simultaneously soothed the itch and inflamed it in their wake. He hated it when he could see it coming, but once it began he never wanted it to stop. Even when it hurt, he’d wanted it.  
  
_Maybe that’s what makes you human, after all.”_  
  
He dropped his head between his knees and dug his flesh fingers through his hair hard enough to draw blood. He’s pretty sure Steve’d never wanted to be used like a toy to prove his humanity. His head may still be a soup of half remembered atrocities and uncertain recollections on good days, but he was still pretty sure he remembered this right. When Steve needed to be reminded he was human, he’d gone and gotten his face punched in, not begged to be used with pathetic whimpers and spread legs on a safehouse floor.  
  
He shoved several fingers in his mouth, licking the drying blood from beneath his nails. Bucky Barnes had been a good man, then. Had done his best to stand between his little sun and the rest of the world and patched Steve up when the world got around him. Then Hydra had taken him and shown him the blackness threaded through his soul, tugging it out and covering him in it until there was nothing left of the good man Bucky used to be.  
  
Natasha was wrong. She had never had a chance to be someone other than what was made of her, but Bucky Barnes had not been born a monster and a toy. Steve may have loved Bucky, but he had not known the Winter Soldier. Bucky had let him pretend, let him believe, that there was some part of Steve’s old, strong friend left inside him, but Steve knew the truth now.  
  
As the last bit of sunlight began to dip below the horizon, Bucky finally came to a decision. Hiding away in his room wasn’t going to change who he was. If he was with Hydra still, they would have dragged him out of his sulk by his hair, by now, and made damn sure he never did anything like it again. Toys didn’t get the luxury of sulking over what they were. The Avengers may be more lenient, but they were probably still disgusted by his behavior. Not that they wouldn’t expect him to be pathetic after what they’d heard, but he didn’t need to keep giving them more displays on the Worthlessness of the Winter Soldier.  
  
This thought got him off the ground and to the door, before he found himself frozen in place once more. His flesh hand felt slick with sweat, unable to grip the handle properly, and his other arm seemed to be malfunctioning and wouldn’t move at all. Finally he kicked the door open in frustration. The dent this left in the bottom of the door would make Steve unhappy. Good.  
  
He stalked down the hallway, expecting at any moment to run into Steve or whichever Avenger was assigned to watch him currently.  
  
Surprisingly enough, he made it all the way to the kitchen without encountering anyone.  
  
“Where are the others?” Bucky asked, knowing that JARVIS at least must still be watching him.  
  
“Mr. Stark has enlisted the aid of Sam Wilson and Agents Romanov and Barton to take Captain Rogers out of the tower for the evening,” the AI said. “The location of Thor is currently unknown. Dr. Banner is in his quarters meditating. Would you like me to call someone for you, Sergeant Barnes?”  
  
“No. I’m fine,” Bucky said.  
  
_”The first time I saw your arm, I thought how wonderful it would be to replace my own skin with metal-“_  
  
There were things besides metal that could make a person strong.

* * *

  
Bruce didn’t notice at first when James Barnes dropped out of his ceiling vent. It was a testament to his control that he barely flinched when the voice broke through his meditation, though it took him a moment to process the question.  
  
“Do you ever like being a monster?”  
  
Bruce stayed sitting on the floor. If this was the direction this conversation was going to go, sitting sounded like the best idea. He tried to gather his thoughts for a response, though it was difficult to do with a blank-faced Winter Soldier staring him down like his life depended on not blinking.  
  
“Um,” Bruce managed to say, bringing one hand up to rub awkwardly at his neck, “Not really, no.” He really hoped Barnes wasn’t about the try to provoke the Other Guy. He didn’t especially feel like explaining the wreckage to Tony later, or the possible resulting dead friend to Steve.  
  
“But you made him.” Once again, Barnes was bluntly obscure, voice so flat he could have been talking about the weather instead of the indestructible, unthinking monster that Bruce put under his own skin.  
  
Bruce knew that the ex-assassin had been having a hard time since the incident with the enemy agent Natasha captured and brought back to the tower for questioning. He had to deal with Tony coming into his lab in the middle of the night a few nights ago to rant about crazy supersoldiers, but had tuned out the billionaire. He did wish Tony would get a real therapist, instead of trying to use Bruce to solve problems that really aren’t in his area of expertise. If Barnes had decided for some reason to come to Bruce for similar reasons, he was going to be disappointed. Given Steve’s recent frame of mind, a disappointed Bucky Barnes wouldn’t spell anything good for anyone. A headache was building behind his eyes, and he didn’t want to think about anything right now. Certainly not about the kinds of things that made the Other Guy want to rage and smash and ruin.  
  
“I made him on accident,” Bruce finally said. Barnes cocked his head to the side, as though the concept of accidents didn’t quite compute. “Look,” he continued, when Barnes kept staring blankly, “I don’t mean to be rude, but can I ask why you’re here? Only, you’ve never really seemed much interested in talking to me before, and last I heard you weren’t talking to anyone. Please tell me you’re not here to meet the Other Guy, cause that won’t really go well for anyone.”  
  
Barnes was definitely glaring at him now. “But when you’re a monster, no one can touch you. No one can make you do anything.”  
  
And ok, apparently the ex-assassin was here to discuss what everyone learned the previous week. Bruce rubbed his neck again, twisting it to try and dislodge some of the building tension. The Other Guy inside him roared. Hydra blood on his hands would hardly be the worst thing ever. It would be easy to let go. To give in. To find every last one of them and rip them limb from limb.  
  
Instead, he took a breath and counted to ten.  
  
“Ah,” he said, ever eloquent in the face of other people’s anger, “No, ah, they can’t.” He thought of screams and blood and smoke, and bowed his head. “But the price is one I wouldn’t wish on anyone.” He trailed off. Words never came as easily to him as equations and engineering. He didn’t know what else to offer, so instead he said, “Would you like some tea?”  
  
Barnes didn’t reply, but when Bruce pulled himself to his feet and moved towards the kitchen, he was followed by a large and silent shadow.  
  
As Bruce moved around the kitchen to make tea, Barnes stayed by the door, eyes tracking Bruce’s every move. It made the Other Guy itch. Luckily, the process of making tea was one he found soothing, and the time passed quickly. He glanced up at Barnes while the tea was steeping to ask, “Cream or sugar?” Barnes stared at him for several seconds, before saying, “No. Thanks.”  
  
He was handing Barnes his tea when the other man asked, “Does anyone love your monster?” The cup holding Bruce’s tea smashed to the ground, but Barnes barely reacted, except for a tightening of his jaw. “People don’t love monsters,” he said, almost insistently, eyes tracking the tea now spreading across the floor.  
  
“Shit,” Bruce said, for lack of any better ideas. This was _not_ how he wanted his evening to go. “Look,” he said, when Barnes just stood in his kitchen doorway, “I really don’t know what you’re looking for, here. If you want reassurance, Steve is probably the better one to ask.” He trailed off and rubbed his hands together, checking for a hint of green in the tensed muscles of his arms. There was none. Thank god.  
  
“Steve doesn’t _understand_ ,” Barnes said, and woah when did he start looking at Bruce again? The man certainly knew how to take Intimidating Staring to a whole new level. The intensity in his words and gaze made even the Other Guy uncomfortable. “Monsters can’t be loved.”  
  
And well, what the hell was Bruce supposed to say to that? If he’s honest with himself, he’s not sure he entirely disbelieves it.  
  
Barnes seemed to take what he was looking for from Bruce’s silence. He nodded and set down the teacup, still full of untouched tea. “Thank you,” he said. And then he was gone, and Bruce was left with a splitting headache and tea on his floor. He picked up Barnes’s cup and moved to the table. It’s good tea; there was little sense in letting two cups go to waste.  
  
By the time he was down to the dregs, Bruce had made up his mind. He glanced up at the ceiling of the room, and said, “JARVIS? Can you tell Tony that he needs to get Steve back to the tower?”  
  
The cool voice of JARVIS filled the room. “Sir is already on his way back with the others, Dr. Banner,” the AI said. “I alerted Mr. Stark as soon as Sergeant Barnes arrived on your floor.”  
  
“Thanks, JARVIS,” Bruce said. He rested his head in his hands, and wondered what the hell to say to Steve. Maybe JARVIS could take care of that part too. In the meantime, he desperately wanted another cup of tea.

 

VI.

Bucky’s skin felt too tight; it was strangling him, drowning him in slime and mud and sticky, dirty shame. His heart couldn’t decide on a rhythm, and his throat was closing up, choking him with revulsion for the twisted mess of flesh he bore. What a used and useless thing he was. He was barely aware of making it back to his rooms (to Steve’s rooms), before he collapsed on a couch and curled into himself.  
  
Maybe if he curled tight enough, pressed his knees close enough to his chest and ducked down far enough, he could make himself disappear entirely. It would be nice to stop existing, perhaps. To not have this body anymore - this dirty ruined skin and these blackened insides made of ash and poison – that would be a blessing he would hardly deserve.  
  
He was glad someone had finally been honest with him, acknowledged that monsters couldn’t be loved.  
  
But it hurt.  
  
Oh, it hurt. He shuddered, and ducked his head beneath his arms, away from the shadow hands reaching out to hurt.  
  
It always hurt when he messed up.  
  
(when he tried too hard to be a person)  
  
_”Gross, you really fuck him after he’s been wiped like that?” the new guy had said, giving the Asset’s naked, drooling form a disgusted once over. “Yeah, I’ll pass.”  
  
“Fuck off then,” another voice had growled. “But it’s not much of a him in this state. It’s our pretty little toy. Reward to us for a job well done, punishment to it for nearly fucking the whole thing up!”  
  
The words were punctuated with a sharp pinch against his inner thigh, that had him jerking weakly against the floor.  
  
“Yeah, whatever. _ It’s _fuckin’ gross.”_  
  
Bucky – the Asset – it it it – whimpered. Sandpaper shame scraped at his insides, choking him on the memory of his own worthlessness. They had broken him open that time, made him bleed and squirm and whine, but his fresh wiped brain had been unable to bring up anything more than  
  
_”Hurts – please – hurts –“  
  
“Someone grab his muzzle and shut him up.”  
  
The crack of a hand across his face hardly registered in the face of the burning pain of his lower half._  
  
There had been so many of them. The techs had wanted their own reward for once.  
  
_”Hey, come on, you guys always get all the fun. You’d have lost it years ago if not for us.”  
  
“Yeah, whatever,” the handler had said, giving his hip a sharp smack. “Given it’s latest fuckup, maybe that’d be a good thing.”  
  
“Not our fault you don’t know how to handle it right.”  
  
“Fine. Once we’re done showing it what its fuckups get, you can show those of us doing the _ real _work how to_ handle _it.  
  
“Bet you’d need to fuck him with a stun baton or some shit to get him tight again after all you assholes have fucked him first.”  
  
“And since I’m so damn nice, maybe I’ll leave you one.”  
  
They’d laughed, at that, laughed and then –  
  
And then –_  
  
All except the one who looked at him – it – him as though he could see the dirt ground in so deep it would never come out.  
  
Steve would look at him like that, once he was done feeling pity. Maybe Steve would spread him out on the floor, offer the others a chance to touch him, and watch Bucky with those cold, knowing eyes.  
  
Maybe Steve would strip him down and then keep going, slide him out of his skin, separate the muscles from the bones, break him down to pieces and then look at Bucky and tell him, “Look at what a mess you made. I was trying to find something good in you, but there’s nothing good to find. Oh, Bucky. Don’t worry. You won’t fool me again.”  
  
There were hands on him.  
  
_There were always hands on him after a mission.  
  
This time there were so many hands on him.  
  
Hands with tools.  
  
Excited, curious hands.  
  
Hands that wanted to explore all the way inside of him.  
  
“How long does it keep bleeding?”  
  
“I don’t fuckin’ know. Not long enough to leave it bloody when he goes into cryo.”  
  
“Fascinating. Have you ever tried two at once?”  
  
“You’re a fuckin’ kinky bastard. You guys wanna go two at a time, be my guest, but I don’t need some other dude’s dick up next to mine when I’m getting’ off.”_  
  
The hands retreated, but voices remained. There were so many people around him, filling the space in counterpoint to the empty mess of his head.  
  
Maybe if they hurt him enough, eventually he would crumble away into dust. Perhaps they would tear him down so far there would nothing left. Nothing but the fuzzy sweet oblivion of electricity sparking down his spine and tearing out his consciousness till only screams and red remained. Then the ice, cold enough that he'd not feel anything at all. It was probably more than he deserved. Steve was far too kind in his cruelty to allow such a thing.  
  
Sometimes Steve was crueler than Hydra.  
  
_They sent him to another room to get the blood and come cleaned off when they were done.  
  
It felt so nice.  
  
To be touched so softly after so much pain.  
  
The doctor only slapped him once, when he looked up to see the Asset with fresh white stains on his chest and tears in his eyes.  
  
“Can’t believe the Fist of Hydra is such a freak,” he muttered.  
  
Freak. Toy. Slut. Fuckup.  
  
Appropriate words for a thing like him.  
  
Like it._  
  
“Bucky, please look at me,” said a voice by his shoulder, a voice raspy and harsh as though the words had trouble making it out the speaker’s mouth. He shuddered.  
  
Nobody loved a monster. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see.  
  
“P-please, Bucky, please just talk to me, look at me, _something._ ”  
  
And maybe it would be different now, maybe Steve would punish him, but he had never hurt Bucky before for saying  
  
“No.”  
  
There was a wet, choking noise where the voice had come from, and then the dull thump of something heavy settling to the floor next to him.  
  
“I don’t care if you don’t believe me,” the stubborn punk said. “I love you, and I’m not gonna leave you alone, Bucky.”  
  
He smelled like sweat and vodka and bloody Brooklyn alleyways long since built over. He breathed in wet rasps of shallow air that sounded like home, and Bucky was so weak.  
  
No matter how dirty his skin became, Bucky had always been weak for something nice. Nothing had ever been nicer than his little Brooklyn punk. When he snaked a hand out from the tangle of his limbs, Steve held it in his own clean hands as though Bucky deserved anything gentle and warm.  
  
“Please don’t make me go away,” he whispered, and the noise of sobs washed over him again.  
  
“Of course I won’t make you go away, Bucky,” the voice said, and the hand around his tightened, warm and nice. Dangerous.  
  
“You will,” he said, sniffling against the snot that had smeared all over his pants where his head was buried against his legs. Dirty, dirty, dirty. _Gross._ “You will.”  
  
The voice didn’t reply again, just dragged Bucky’s whole arm into the embrace of his body. It took Bucky a moment to realize the new wetness on his sleeve was Steve’s tears.  
  
“I love you, Bucky,” the voice lied.  
  
Bucky knew what he was, but it was nice of Steve to pretend for a little while.  
  
Even if it would only hurt more when the illusion ended.


End file.
